


Thank God It's Christmas

by theyshotmyclown



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Baking, Christmas, Domesticity, Fluff, M/M, baking? should i tag that?, is that a thing people search for?, there we are then it's a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:44:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2846546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyshotmyclown/pseuds/theyshotmyclown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What sort of Christmas miracle is this? Rick Macy, cooking?” </p>
<p>In which Rick is very into Christmas, and Kieren finds it rather endearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank God It's Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Rickren non-zombie AU, Christmas edition. Because I can. Happy holidays!

The fir tree looms ominously in their living room, daring someone to attempt to drape tinsel over it and suffer the consequences. Rick, rocking on his heels and holding a box of baubles, looks immensely proud of himself. Kieren sighs. 

“Ken told me they were doing 'em cheap down on the farm, so I thought I'd, y'know...” Rick gestures to the tree. “Fancy, eh?”

Kieren gives the tree the once over. It's not particularly tall, but what it lacks in height it more than makes up for in girth, and it's filled most of the tiny room just by existing. He's not sure he wants to ask how Rick got it in the car, but clearly it worked. He tries to imagine it decked out in lights and winces at the prospect. “It's definitely something, all right.”

“You are _such_ a fucking grinch.” Rick tuts, and crouches to rummage in a box marked _CHRISTMAS SHIT_ until he finds a bundle of lights. “When we've got her all lit up and covered in sparkly stuff she'll be great.”

“It's a tree, Rick.”

“Listen you, you've hurt her feelings enough already.” Rick smirks and sweeps from the room, arms full of tinsel destined for god knows where. “Check the bulbs on those lights, will you?”

Kieren rolls his eyes and drops onto the sofa, fingers working on the knots in the wires. Vague sounds that should probably worry him drift in from the kitchen. He figures things are probably fine so long as he can still hear Rick humming _Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem_ off-key.

 

* * *

 

 The day before Christmas Eve, Kieren comes home to find Michael Buble playing on some sort of hellish cycle on the radio and Rick sitting on the living room floor with a box of cards, chewing on the end of a biro. He throws his coat over the back of the sofa and puts the bags of shopping on the rickety table in the corner of the flat that passes for a dining room.

“You all right?”

Rick flicks through a handful of cards, searching for matching envelopes. “We haven't done all the cards yet.”

“What?”

“Cards. We haven't written them or got them all posted and it's almost Christmas.” He looks genuinely distressed by this, something Kieren would find more worrying if he wasn't also wearing a tinsel garland dating from an obviously more festive period of his afternoon. “Post'll be rubbish on Christmas Eve.”

Kieren sits down crossed-legged next to him, pressing a kiss to his temple as he does so, and picks up the list of names Rick has already started. “Who have we got then?”

Rick hands a card over. “Go on, you sign that one. It's to your lot.”

It's a pretty monumental moment, Kieren thinks, when you start signing cards as a couple instead of doing your own separate piles. It's very official and a little unnerving, as if you're waiting for people to point it out, especially when it's them and especially when it's Roarton. Living in the city is all very well, but the cards are still going to be shoved through letterboxes in the village - he pictures Bill Macy's face when that happens, and he's glad they're having Christmas dinner with his parents instead.

“Quick as you like, not like we're on a tight schedule or anything.”

Kieren smiles, takes the card, and with only a moment's hesitation adds _love Rick and Kieren_ under the standard festive greeting.

 

* * *

 

 The smoke alarm has been notoriously volatile during the sixth months they've been in the flat. It's been set off by the faintest wisp of burning toast, and yet steadfastly ignored the actual flames that devoured four rashers of bacon and Rick's eyebrows. On Christmas morning, however, Kieren is woken by high-pitched wailing and a stream of decidedly un-festive sentiments from the kitchen. He keeps his eyes firmly shut.

When neither the smoke alarm nor the swearing stops after a good ten minutes, he reluctantly drags himself out of bed and pads down the hall.

Rick is standing in the middle of their tiny kitchen, flapping a tea towel at the oven with one hand and desperately using a wooden spoon to push the window open with the other. On top of the hob is a tray of slightly blackened muffins in Santa-hat-patterned cake cases. Kieren leans against the door frame and surveys the scene of baking devastation before him.

“Oh fucking hell,” Rick says. The wooden spoon bounces off the windowsill and vanishes into the abyss below.

“What sort of Christmas miracle is this? Rick Macy, _cooking?_ ” Kieren says over the smoke alarm. He raises an eyebrow and grins, and Rick whirls round wide-eyed. “Not sure they'd be passed by Mary Berry mind you.”

Rick scowls at the muffins. “I thought I had time to wrap a couple presents while they were in the oven.”

“Bit of icing, cover the burnt bits, job done. Here, give us that.” Kieren points at their remaining wooden spoon and then proceeds to jab at the smoke alarm with it until the noise cuts out, leaving them in blissful silence. He sighs. “Thank god for that.”

Rick looks sheepish. “Well. Merry Christmas.”

Kieren smiles and pulls him in by the tea towel still being half-heartedly waved in front of the oven door. “I always forget how into Christmas you get.” Rick's wearing the festive jumper Kieren's parents got him last year, light-up bits and all. Kieren pushes his hands under it for warmth, resting them at the small of his back.

“I was going to wake you up with breakfast muffins in bed.”

“You did, kind of.” Kieren says into his chest. “Could've done without the sodding air raid siren, maybe.”

“Fuck off.”

Kieren snorts, frees one hand from the jumper in order to lace their fingers together. “Happy Christmas." Rick has a smudge of flour on his cheek and what looks like cake mix at the corner of his mouth, and Kieren leans up to lick it away daintily. “Come back to bed for a bit?”

Rick pretends to think about it. “Yeah, all right.”

Then the smoke alarm bursts back into life, violently protesting its existence amongst the faintest hint of fire and festive cheer. Kieren rules that silence comes above health and safety, just this once, and takes the batteries out. 

 

* * *

 

They get back from Christmas dinner at the Walkers' at midnight, having played a particularly brutal game of monopoly (Jem won, Jem always wins) and popped in briefly on the Macy's to deliver a bottle of wine. Kieren drank a bottle of Merlot to himself, a fact he now finds hysterical, and Rick leaves him on the sofa while he goes in search of water and cautionary paracetamol. 

"Your mum does a good Christmas pudding, y'know." He calls from the kitchen. 

"Hm." Kieren sinks into the cushions and decides he's never moving again, the drooping Santa hat on his head be damned. "'Good, wasn't it?"

Rick joins him after a moment, leaving a pint of water on the coffee table. Kieren lets his eyes close and settles in against his side as Rick pulls him in. "'S been good, Christmas."

"Changed your tune, Scrooge." 

Kieren makes a noise that sounds like a deflated balloon, snakes a hand around his waist and yawns against his neck. Rick smiles into his hair. He squeezes his shoulder gently. "Hey look, I told you the tree'd look festive in the dark." 

Kieren opens one eye suspiciously and surveys the sparkling monstrosity that's somehow grown on him over the last week, like a festive wart. "I guess it's alright. S'good thing I'm too drunk to formulate words."

"You're adorable when you're pissed."

"Piss off, Macy." Kieren yawns again, and comes to the cheerful conclusion that he has in fact become one with the sofa. He can feel Rick's heart beating against his cheek through the hideous jumper, and his head feels soft and cushioned by festive cheer and wine in equal parts. If he stays like this on the sofa for the rest of his life, he thinks, he doesn't mind. "Happy Christmas." 

Rick smiles, and holds him tighter. 


End file.
